The technologically advanced among us found the State Fair streetcar arch by using Google Earth or Google Maps or some form of Google wizardry that I suppose is easier than crawling through a hole in a fence and walking through the brambles, but not as fun.

Satellite photos are rich with their own intrigue. Seen from space, the arch shows up as a gray scar, a slash, not much different than, say, looking at a photograph of what might be called a missile installation or the entrance to a mine.

I suppose it was never that crucial to keep the location of the arch a secret. It's not as if somebody could put it in the back of a pickup truck and steal it. It's too big and too heavy and essentially too inaccessible. Since its abandonment, the woods have grown up around it and a fence subsequently encircled the woods.

The arch is in a stand of scrub immediately south of the parking lots that are immediately south of Como, right behind the old KTCA Public Television building, which is now The CW television station. To extract the arch will require manpower and cranes and money and determination.

And then, once extracted, what might be done with it? Suggestions include placing it as an entrance to Heritage Square or bringing it downtown as an entrance to the new ballpark that might be built in Lowertown. At least two Vulcan Krewes have weighed in, offering their help. People want to see it, that's for sure. Urban explorers and geocachers said, "Come on, give us a clue.

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Personally, I would put it back where it was or at the very least keep it somewhere on the Fairgrounds. It is so richly 20th century, so thoroughly evocative of the Fair being a wonderland that it would ring a sour note to use it elsewhere. You couldn't walk just under any arch to see Bonnie and Clyde's bullet-riddled Ford or Irvy the Whale or a giant pumpkin. It had to be that arch you walked under, or that your parents and grandparents walked under after they got off a streetcar.

A decorative 'M" on what remains of the Minnesota State Fair streetcar arch. (Pioneer Press: John Autey)

"We want it," Jerry Hammer said. "We will save it."

Hammer, the Fair's general manager, started watering plants at the Fair's greenhouse in 1970. He is certainly proof that hard work and perseverance pay off because he now runs the Fair. He is the man. If he says that he is going to save and restore and replace the arch, it will happen. The excitement in his voice was unmistakable. He didn't know it even existed.

"I grew up on Breda Street right near the Fair," Hammer said. "I remember that arch. I remember it as recently as 1970."

Hammer lost his chief grounds crew man last year, a World War II stalwart who was a submariner. "A hell of a guy," Hammer said. "He would have known." But now Hammer is going through the ranks of employees trying to find out when the arch was taken down and why it is has essentially been hiding in plain sight.

In fact, when I told him where exactly it was, his excitement grew. Because that is the Fair's property. He went from wondering who owns it to realizing that the Fair owns it.

"It got set back there and forgot about," Hammer said. "We will make plans for it. It used to be about where the Miracle of Birth Center is now. I don't know what we will do yet, but I do know the expensive stuff around here is what you don't see. We want to preserve what you can see; we want to improve the aesthetics."

The arch fits that ticket. It must be made of galvanized steel, because it is not rusted. Needing further research is whether the arch said "Minnesota State Fair" or just "State Fair." The discovery in the woods still has the trace of fading paint that says "Minnesota State Fair," but Hammer will get to the bottom of it, and it will be done correctly.

They better research that paint, too. That is some kind of paint that those letters are still readable after at least 42 years out in the open.